Jim: The question this evening has to do with emotions. We recognize
love and fear as being polar opposites and we’re wondering if all the
other emotions, such as jealousy, anger, doubt, greed, gluttony and so
forth are some sort of a mixture of fear with love and if there is
positive use that we can make of these supposedly negative emotions. Is
there some benefit we can get from working with these emotions? What
spiritual principles can we use to look at the various emotions that we
come across in our daily lives?
(Carla channeling)
We are those of the principle of Q’uo. Greetings in the love and in
the light of the one infinite Creator, in whose service we come to you
this evening. Thank you for calling us to your circle of seeking this
evening. It is a privilege to be called and we are most happy to share
our thoughts with you on the subject of emotions, love and fear.
As always, however, before we begin we would ask of each of you who
hears or reads these words that you use your powers of discrimination
and discernment in choosing which thoughts of ours you might wish to use
as resources for your spiritual journey. We would ask that you follow
the path of resonance. And if ideas do not resonate to you then please
leave them behind without a second thought. We would not wish to be a
stumbling block to you but only a resource. We thank you for this
consideration.
You asked this evening concerning emotions. We find that among your
people, emotions are often unappreciated and dishonored by those who
would wish to live a spiritually oriented life. From our perspective,
however, the emotions that you feel are gifts of enormous worth. Whereas
the mind moves from thought to thought, generally governed by logic and
the intellect, the heart moves from emotion to emotion, generally with
no intellectual component whatsoever. For emotions are those gifts of
the heart that stem from the very depths and roots of your
consciousness.
Thusly, when you are attempting to think about emotions, you are
attempting to think about that which has its reality in time/space, for
[emotions] come from your consciousness rather than your intellect or
mentality. Each person has a different and unique mentality and
personality. However, as members of the tribe of humankind on your
planet in third density, you share one consciousness. Your jealousy and
another’s jealousy has the same energy. Your love and another’s love of a
certain frequency has the same energy. It is emotions rather than
thoughts which unite your people.
Now, in the roots of consciousness which this instrument calls the
archetypal mind, the emotions can be mapped, much as the waterways of
your continent can be mapped. There are rivers of emotions of various
kinds, both those emotions you would call positive, such as joy, bliss
and happiness, and emotions you would call negative, such as greed,
gluttony and lust. Yet each emotion flows from its most distorted or
extreme manifestation, through a succession of removals of distortion,
until at last they all empty into the ocean that you would call the
Logos or unconditional love or bliss.
This instrument has been attempting to define emotions along some
sort of a yardstick or ruler attempting to measure emotions by the ratio
of love to fear, this instrument having posited that love and fear are
the fundamental opposites of emotion. [1] And we would suggest that
while there is an element of truth in this thought, that it attempts to
corral and compress the 360 degrees of emotions into a two-dimensional,
straight line. This attempt in itself is a distortion of the model,
shall we say, which we might suggest to be more useful for thinking
about emotions.
In some ways, emotions can be perceived in terms of complementary
colors. Those who wish to decorate their walls, for instance, will find a
color wheel in which complementary colors are shown. And various
contrasts are seen that are dynamic opposites. We find this wheel of
color concept to be of use in talking about emotions.
However, it is not correct, in our humble opinion, to attempt to
attach significance to the colors of emotions in that, for instance, it
is said that someone is feeling “blue,” and there may well be a
relationship betwixt that color or feeling which is blueness and that
emotion. However, it is not valid to link “feeling blue” to the blue ray
or the blue energy center, any more than a person who is “yellow” is
operating from the yellow ray, or a person who is “green with envy” is
operating from the heart chakra. In this sense there is no connection
betwixt color and the emotions. They cannot be attached to any one
chakra or ray. It is, however, a useful exercise when thinking about
emotions to think of complementary colors and the track along which a
certain kind of emotion might fall, so that one might begin to develop a
wheel of emotions.
One way to look at emotions is to see where the love is in the
emotion. For instance, if one considers the emotion of jealousy, the
emotion of love is clearly seen, in that the object which has inspired
one’s jealousy is greatly loved. Therefore, the jealousy has love at its
heart, yet [it is] tinged by the fear of the loss of that love.
[Therefore] the energy of the love becomes quite different from the
original free and easy feeling of love.
We would suggest that there are complementary emotions, so that one
may take radii out from the center of the wheel of emotions which is
unconditional love, that love which this instrument would say is
Christlike or which carries Christ Consciousness.
From that original love or that sea of bliss in the archetypal mind
there spring forth the natural rays all around the 360 degrees of
personhood.
Another way to evaluate emotions is to look at the faculty of will,
desire or expectation. The clearest way to approach emotion, living
day-to-day, would be to remain transparent and unattached to the outcome
of one’s objects of desire or will or one’s expectations. However, it
is precisely the inability of the individual within incarnation to
remain unattached to outcomes which creates the bulk of distorted
emotional reactions. Thusly, if one loved another purely and without
attachment of any kind, and that object of love chose to move into
relationship with another self beside the self, in the unattached entity
this would be only a source of joy, knowing that the other self that is
so beloved was doing something that he or she enjoyed. However, it is
seldom that entities are unattached in this way.
If one looks at the meat of the spiritual life, it is clear that it
is a blessing that the entity within incarnation is attached to outcomes
and has distortions and expectations and desires, because these
elements create the potential for feeling emotions and engaging
consciousness in new and different ways.
Another element which is important to consider when looking at
emotions is that faculty which you call judgment. The seeker who feels
surface emotions tends to be non-judgmental if the emotions seem
positive but quite judgmental if one’s own emotions seem to be from the
shadow side of the self and express the darkness within. Now, if one
were looking at a color wheel one would not judge the dark colors as
inferior to the lighter colors but would see that all the range of
colors would be needed to create all pleasing harmony within one’s color
scheme. One would not shun the use of the notes of brown and gray and
black and navy blue, for instance, as opposed to the pastels and the
lighter colors in their earth tones such as the light tan, the light
gray, and so forth. All of these colors equally are valued in building
an environment which is pleasing to you personally.
As the spiritual seeker becomes more mature, each experience is
another opportunity to work with a surface emotion and to refine or
purify that emotion by offering it up as a spontaneous and pure feeling,
without judgment, without asking the self to be one who feels only the
positive emotions. Each emotion starts out, in the immature entity, as
that which is confused and chaotic and has a high degree of static or
noise as opposed to signal. Consequently, as a spiritual seeker, each
time an emotion arises you are working to feel it without shrinking from
it or reaching towards it, the goal being not to do anything with the
emotion except to allow it to sink into the consciousness of the present
moment.
As you give respect and honor to surface emotions you allow them the
spaciousness to begin to filter down past the first levels of
impulsivity and self-judgment. And as you allow yourself the space and
the time for this emotion to tell its story to you, you are sinking into
the roots of your own consciousness and beginning to be able to feel
each emotion as a more distinct, pure and clarified color, shall we say.
It is possible, indeed probable, that some sort of ongoing
contemplation of the archetypal mind may help the seeker to evaluate and
think about the experiences of emotion that he has. Within the glyph of
the Tree of Life, for instance, there are various emotions that are
linked to the middle pillar, the feminine pillar, and the masculine
pillar. It might be interesting to contemplate where the emotions that
you experience day-by-day might fit on that Tree of Life glyph. [2]
Similarly, if one has a bent towards astrology, the ins and outs of
the various signs and houses are to some a real aid and resource when
working with understanding one’s emotions.
Lastly, as this particular group has done in the past, there is the
possibility of gazing at the world of emotion and the nature of
consciousness by working with the twenty-two images of the tarot. [3] As
one looks at each concept complex, one may begin to see relationships
betwixt various emotions.
This is subtle work, my friends, and the nature of consciousness is
that of paradox, mystery and infinity, so that you do not have the
comfort which the intellect might offer of finding neat and tidy
explanations or orders to emotions within one’s life or within the
creation of the infinite One. Rather, emotion, like the rivers and lakes
of your planet, is an ever flowing, ever changing, ever evolving water
system, shall we say, or circulation system of the consciousness of the
one Creator.
You ask what spiritual principles can be used to think about emotion
and we would offer you the principle of unity. You are all one. You do
share an instinctual, fundamental and authentic awareness of the stuff
of emotion. This is something that is trustworthy—that you have emotions
in common with each other. There is no emotion that you can feel that
others have not felt before you and will not feel after you.
In a way, emotions have more coherence than the workings of the
intellect which would seem to be so much more coherent because of the
nature of logic. However, logic can be spun to create sophistic
rationales for anything desired, whereas emotions are stubbornly what
they are. One may attempt to tamper with an emotion to make it different
than it is, yet it is not in tampering [with emotions], or attempting
to adjust emotions that you do not prefer, that create a skillful
approach to emotion. Rather, it is to the one who trusts each and every
emotion enough to give it space and time in which to articulate itself
within your awareness that emotions shall begin to offer you the reward
of that feeling of oneself that goes beyond the linear.
You are infinite beings. And yet on the surface of the mind there is a
far more pale and watery feeling to the emotions of the day than you
are able to experience when you stick with gazing at each and every
emotion with respect and the lack of judgment.
The one known as L was saying earlier that there were those she met
in the course of doing her job and her service to others who called up
from within her feelings of really bright anger. What was she to do with
this sudden and impulsive anger? Was she to attempt to squash it or to
repress it? Was she to give it so much honor that she expressed that
anger in ways that were not of service to others? How was she to handle
feeling this sudden, impulsive anger? This occurs time and time again in
the course of each and every day for each and every spiritual seeker.
And it would seem that there is no useful function for the negative
emotions, whereas the positive emotions such as joy, admiration and love
of a romantic or friendly nature are feel-good emotions that are hardly
ever evaluated or judged. Nevertheless, it is very helpful when working
with positive emotions to pay attention to them also. For just like the
negative emotions, the surface of a positive emotion is only the
beginning of its intensity, its clarity and its vitality, and it is to
the spiritual seeker who focuses on such surface emotions such as joy
and allows them to expand and, as we said before, to tell their story
around the campfire of the self as it experiences itself that the gift
of positive emotions shall come.
Likewise, when experiencing the seemingly negative or shadow emotions
it is quite useful to behold and allow the awareness of these surface
emotions to remain, not pushing them away because they are uncomfortable
to behold, not saying, “Well, this can’t be me, I would never be so
negative,” but rather gazing at this dark color of emotion and asking it
to clarify, to refine itself, to become more pure.
The one known as L asked, “Well, what use are negative emotions? Can I
use them?” We would suggest that the value of even the darkest seeming
emotion is equal to the value of the most seemingly positive emotion in
that it is a valid and honored part of all that there is. You are
everything, every emotion. And each emotion has its place in creating of
you within incarnation a less and less unbalanced and distorted
expression, if you will, of the one Creator, for each of you is an
expression of the one Creator.
As we have said through this instrument many times, it is the darker
emotions, such as anger, that when allowed to become refined and
purified create the grit, the muscle, the determination, the energy of
enduring and persevering and winning through to the goals of your
incarnation. If you do not have that driving energy that is expressed in
anger within you in a more purified and refined state, you do not have
the energy to be patient with the self as it is refined in the athanor
or the furnace of experience.
This instrument was working with a quote from the Holy Bible earlier
today that said that the one known as Jesus the Christ did not come into
the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be
saved. [4] We would suggest that you be as merciful with yourself when
working with negative emotions as would the one known as Jesus be. He
was not interested in working with those who were free of error; he was
interested in working with those who were distorted, who were hurting,
who were suffering, who were in the darkness of confusion. Let that
climate of complete non-judgment be your working attitude as you allow
each emotion its proper place in your consciousness, and as you ask of
yourself that you provide a continuing environment within yourself in
which honored and respected emotions may gradually be purified and
refined.
Your goal, then, is not to balance emotions until here is no emotion,
but to experience each emotion in ways which allow those emotions to go
from being muddy and confused to a place where each emotion is a
jewel-tone. Gems come in all colors from black to white and everything
in between. And the beauty of each is unique to that particular gem.
Your emotions are gemlike. And when you have been able to allow the murk
and the mud and the impulsivity gradually to evaporate from the heart
and essence of each emotion, you are as one who has dug in the ore to
mine those gems of self which you have in common with all those of your
fellow humans. And as those energies within you are purified, there is
less and less distortion [and] more and more balance, and less and less
of that component of fear which we began by discussing. For it is indeed
a valid observation that the one great original Thought is the emotion
that is at the heart of every emotion, positive or negative. This is a
trustworthy statement as far as we know. Every shade of emotion has its
root in love, love unconditional, love un-judging, utter and absolute
love. The oftener that you are able, at the end of working with
emotions, to come back to love and to allow that love to overflow all
other considerations, the stronger you shall be in being able to do this
work of allowing the self to bloom.
Each of you is like a flower. And certainly if one looks at each
entity’s energy body, each chakra is like a flower of a certain shape
and of a certain potential for becoming more brilliant, more
many-petaled and fuller of bloom. So think of working with your emotions
as if you were working with the energies of dancing or music or poetry.
Allow boundaries to collapse, so that you begin to feel the
connections between positive and negative emotions. As you become more
fearless and flexible in working with balancing each emotion, you are
allowing those chakras of your energy body to become more brilliant,
more fully petaled, more articulated and more powerful.
We would conclude this observation of emotions with the concept of
power. In an entity who is not attempting to seek spiritually or to find
out by some way who he is and why he is here, the emotions shall
generally remain fairly muddy and un-clarified, for there is really no
incentive for one who does not realize the gifts that emotions represent
to do the work necessary to begin to refine and purify these authentic
and infinitely meaningful feelings that are the rays of your essential
beingness as a creature of love.
(Side one of tape ends.)
(Carla channeling)
We have mentioned the balancing exercise many times through this
instrument, and we would refer to it once again briefly for it is a very
useful way to work with emotions.
The nature of all that is not the one original Thought is to be
distorted. Distortion is not a bad word. Distortion is not an insulting
word. There is distortion in all manifestation, even the highest and
best you can imagine. If there were no distortion, there would be no
creation, for the creation itself, in its manifested aspect, is a series
of nested distortions. Thusly, one is not attempting to remove
distortion completely, but rather to allow it to become more coherent;
to change stuttering and muddy colors to laser lights and jewels.
The work of the balance exercise is simply to find each trigger which
moved you this day from a certain default balance to an unbalanced or
distorted reaction, whether it was for positive or negative, so-called.
Looking at those things within the self, looking at the process by
which one was pulled off center, tells you about yourself. And as you
allow those feelings to be viewed again and even to be intensified and
then, as you allow the seemingly opposite emotion to come, as a
complementary color would be seen across the color wheel, you lessen
distortion within yourself by encouraging the equal respect given to
both the seemingly negative and the seemingly positive.
As we said before, this is subtle work, but it is the work that you
are here to do in terms of learning about yourself, learning who you
are; in beginning to feel an authenticity of being that is more and more
profound, so that you are a sturdier warrior of the light than you were
before. Every emotion has its place. The surface of emotions is only
the beginning of them.
We wish you the very best of journeys of exploration as you work with
these emotions to learn of each and every essence that makes you who
you are. You will find that all emotions, once they have been purified,
work in harmony to create of you a human being. The nature of the human
is to be ethically oriented and to desire to serve, to love and to know.
Trust your emotions to help you learn these things. And as you relate
to others, trust the emotions in them that resonate with your own in
terms of dealing with each entity at the soul level.
Before we leave this instrument we would ask if there is a query, or a
follow-up to this question. We are those of Q’uo.
(Pause)
Since we seemed to have exhausted the queries within this group this
evening, then it falls to us to release this connection to this
instrument and to this group. We would like to thank you again for
calling us to your circle of seeking. It has been a joy and we are so
grateful to each of you for crafting time and space in your very busy
lives in order to come and seek for truth together. The sacred space
that you have created with your desire and your longing is a stunningly
beautiful thing and we thank you for that also.
We leave this instrument and this group in the love and in the light
of the one infinite Creator. We are known to you as the principle of
Q’uo. Adonai, my friends. Adonai vasu.
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Sneak Preview……
Today, I feel urged to to reveal a little of the novel I'm currently writing. Not sure what it will accomplish, but the urge is there, and it feels good. "Make It Real" is a so-called braided tale weaving three timelines into a timeless piece of reflection:
Comment I got from a fifteen year old as I told him the outline of the story: "This book is going to change a lot" and me, daft as I am, said "Why?, it is almost half finished" Turned out he meant that it would change many of those reading it.... And you know what they say about kids. And no, he wasn't one of my kids.......
Love your Light,
Dre'
P.S. I still come up short on my list of E-mail addresses to present to the publisher as receivers of the mailing about that book. Especially since I do not specifically wish to invite my colleagues to join. This story might be a bit too close to home to involve them. However, if they pass the barriers I will be putting up, then their knowledge of it is apparently what should happen.
4444AD, Day 223, 12:34, HomeI'm flat on my back, relaxing as I'm working. The two by two meter vidcloth on the ceiling displays various windows, from various eras. Top left is my vision feed of March 12th, 2010. I have the accompanying audio on the speakers, and “Day sixteen: Loser” plays, not interfered by anything else in the vicinity. I just love seeing myself be busy creating. The video feed gets interrupted by the screen saver kicking in: photos of an intimately familiar lady fill that top left corner. I leave it be, and switch to another, apparently me in a train. Nobody in view, just empty seats opposite me.
I remember how I felt back then, being busy with the idea of the neural network I'd envisioned seeing myself create. I know I can't actually make myself achieve anything better back then, but I can make myself feel better about it. I flip open the plans of the quadrionic mind in my mind's eye, and study them for the next few minutes. By focusing the energy of that activity on my past incarnation, I can strengthen his belief in the fact that he will, in due time, achieve his goal. Just as I eventually did in 2042....
Seda steps into the bedroom, seeing me enjoy myself. She bounces onto the bed next to me, and immediately succeeds in getting my mind off myself. Hey, some people have that effect on me, what can I say? “And, where has my most favorite girl in all the world been hanging around?” I ask her. She tells me she's been walking around town, collecting interesting things from an antiques shop she frequents on a regular basis. Roberto, the antiquarian, told her he had some really nice needlework from around the turn of the second millennium. She jumps off the bed, and steps into the corridor, only to return with four almost square frames. They depict four angels, delicately embroidered on white linen. Two are relatively colorful, a third is done in distinct autumn-like colors. The forth and final one apparently depicts wintertime. A quick reference to the vidcloth on the ceiling gives the game away: the design is indeed a quartet, and these are called the Four Seasons. My vision enhancer highlights a slightly off-colored patch in the corners of the needle works. In icy blue, nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding whiteness, some sort of code is embroidered: MS2000. I now begin to appreciate the weird familiarity of the female foursome: I have seen them before! Rather than letting the raw power of the Google vision search loose on it, I'd rather let my mind do the work involved. The vision search is a descendant of the Google image search, which searches for imagery based on text. Vision Search does quite the opposite: based on a single image, it retrieves images of the same subject, or similar ones, to enable the user to gather context data on something they've only seen once.
And then it hits me: around 2000, my dad in that life embroidered these ladies, proud to have done it in only 555 hours! I flip over the frames, and indeed: one of them has a small label on it, specifying the name of the works, the period they were made in, and the telltale 555 hours.
It is always nice to find stuff from your own past. It reminds you of the timelessness and the interconnectedness of things, which reminds me:
While Seda goes down to the kitchen to make her famous macaroni with synthetic (but no less tasty) chicken and sweet & sour, I go with her and read some more in my manuscript, so attentively sent to me by Denisa.....
'From one marvel to the next'
Thinking back, I wonder why our hosts arrived on foot when they could just as easily have flown right to where we were standing. When asked, Mayra gives a simple explanation: “Two beings on foot pose much less of a threat than a flying saucer carrying the same two people. Hence our preference for walking the extra distance”. Now there’s a train of thought I can wholeheartedly agree with. I thank her for the explanation, and go back to my own thoughts, that wander to the design of the floater that we are in. Sure, its mind-controlled interface is spectacular enough, but otherwise it’s very minimalist in design: a large metal disc-shaped object, with a depression at the center. Around it, seven seats are placed. Come to think of it, it looks suspiciously like the wild water rides that we use on the outside of the globe. Only this one floats on air instead of water, and it’s a much smoother ride. It has no apparent roof structure, so I ask Kayim about it. He explains that inside, the weather does not have its ups and downs like outside, for there are no seasons. There is occasional rain, but the people here don’t really mind that, and the same force field that floats the floater also keeps out the excess water. As we approach the city, I take a closer look at it: it consists almost entirely of spheres of various sizes, some buried halfway in the surface. Lots of green in between, making it a great place to live in, I imagine. The spheres are different shades of color, giving the impression of soap bubbles from afar.
We land on the edge of the city, next to a modest globe. I can now spot an entirely glass surface surrounding it, which can be seen to be divided into six distinct levels. The top level seems to have no real ceiling, more like a greenhouse. We enter the structure at ground level, and step onto a disc that’s in the core of the building. You can look up and see all the floors, just like an elevator that has no walls. The disc starts to rise, and I see Melanie trying to scare me to death: she holds out her arm, and steps to the side of the platform to allow the next floor to chop it off. Her plan is foiled, because of some unseen barrier that won’t allow anything to cross the edge of the platform as long as it is moving. Mayra notices also, and laughs at my youngest.
We stop on the next floor, and find it divided into four quarter-circle rooms. “These are the working areas,” Mayra explains: “They are on the lower levels because of the frequent transporting of goods in and out of them. Because of their being on the lower half of the sphere, they are usually lit by artificial means”. I see what she means, but for the life of me cannot discover any source of internal light. Still, the rooms seem better lit than any I’ve seen on the surface. We get onto the disc again, only to stop briefly at the next level, which is divided into six pie-shaped rooms.
Each one has two discs on the floor, and two discs on the ceiling directly above them. One of the rooms clearly demonstrates the purpose of the discs: another Inner Earth person is suspended in between two discs. As we approach, he effortlessly swings into an upright position, and steps forward to meet us. “I’ve been waiting for you since I finished preparing our meal. My name is Sinan.” Further talking reveals that he is the mate of Mayra, and Kayim is their son. They live together in this house, which seems somewhat large for the three of them. Mayra explains that they have been appointed hosts of the access point that we came through, so they sometimes have guests from the surface, hence the six bedrooms. The seven of us step onto the central disc again, and ascend to the next level, which also has six pie-shaped rooms. “These are for various activities,”, Mayra explains: “Kayim has his musical studio in one of these”. Laura can’t wait to hear her new friend: “Will you please play us something?”, she asks in her sweetest voice. Kayim obliges, and takes the seat behind a desk that features various colored crystals. They light up the moment he sits down, and his hands above the array of crystalline light start making subtle movements. The end result is one of the sweetest compositions I’ve ever heard. All of us stand there and listen intently, until the spontaneous concert is finished. When it does, we outsiders all applaud Kayim, with Laura cheering as well. “Who wrote that marvelous piece?”, she wants to know. Kayim smiles, taking a bow: “I just improvised a little, so you could say I 'wrote' it...”, he says.
We go up another level, and come to another set of four rooms, with large, tilted windows all around the circumference of the building. Three of the four rooms are home to various plants, growing in shallow tanks containing a greenish, luminous substance. “This is our hydroponics area. It grows all of the fruits and vegetables we consume.”, Mayra explains. She goes on to tell us that the plants that thrive best on real sunlight are closest to the windows, whereas the more rugged plants get by on artificial light. Finally, the ones that don't require light, like mushrooms, are grown in a subterranean level at the base of the sphere. The one remaining room on this level is the kitchen, which has its own dedicated access to the dining table above, which we will see shortly. Sinan gestures towards the central disc again, to introduce us to the final level of the structure: the living area.
The four of us stand in awe of the sight we behold: a large circular floor, that is topped by an equally large glass dome. Basically, this dome is the top sixth part of the sphere, leaving the entire floor permanently lit by the smoky central sun. We can see the entire city, and the landscape that surrounds it. ”That's something different from the street view you get from your average city home.”, I say to Gea. She looks at me, and just smiles quietly. Mayra calls our attention to a round table, with a big gaping hole in the middle. As we look on, a plateau displaying the most delicious dishes surfaces, inviting us to the table. Around it we find simple but adequate stools, that automatically adjust their height to the size of the person sitting on them. We all sit down, when Sinan invites us to quietly contemplate the origins of the food we are about to eat. I look over the dishes, and realize that no matter how different they are from the foods of the outer world, their origins are the same: it is all part of the All, just as we are.
Sinan wishes us a healthy meal, and puts some food on his plate. As I ask him to hand me one of the green eggs that are in his vicinity, the central plateau of the table rotates, so I can easily take one myself. “How did you do that?”, I ask. Mayra explains that it is the same mechanism that controls the floater outside. She invites me to try it myself, because it isn't that hard. I notice a delicious piece of fruit across the table, and decide to give it a go. I concentrate on choosing the fruit, and the plateau revolves to the point where I can reach in and get it. Of course the girls can't wait to perform their own experiments on it. Unfortunately, they both formulate their requests at the same time, and the end result is that the table voices its objection against this conflict by a short somewhat irritated sound. Kayim laughs, and tells Laura to let her sister go first. Melanie, seated right next to me, chooses her food with care, and then mentions to me that Laura has already learnt her first words of Solara Maru, from Kayim. I look across the table, and see the two of them exchanging meaningful looks.
I ponder the apparent design choices of the Inner Earth people: their homes seem built for maximum efficiency. Distinguishing them from the houses of neighbors appears to be totally irrelevant. Mayra explains that the spherical shape has been chosen because it leaves a minimal surface for a maximal content, thus minimizing the exchange of energy with the environment. Not that they really need it of course, because the season-less weather keeps the outdoor temperature always around twenty degrees centigrade. “We prefer the beauty of optimal solutions to the aesthetics.” Sinan says. I state that even though aesthetics is not their main concern, they haven't lost their eye for beauty. When everybody seems to have had enough, the plateau slowly sinks back to the kitchen level. Mayra points out that the remains of our copious meal will be recycled into the substance that feeds the hydroponics area.
As we stand up, Sinan again draws our attention to the table. The plateau has returned, and the large circular surface becomes the scene where a scale model of the city appears. Even my untrained eye recognizes the configuration of spheres, some large and some small. But the differences between big and small are much smaller than between houses and office buildings up top. Mayra explains that massive office buildings are not needed here, as most of the people work from their homes. In fact, most won't call it work, because basically it is just doing what they love to do. The only reason things seem so out of proportion on the outside, is because there everything is controlled instead of trusting that nature will find the right way. “Call me an anarchist, but that reasoning doesn't sound half bad”, I thought. Since consumption here is on a much lower level than outside, big stores are also not needed. Life inside isn't all about money, certainly not. The necessities of life are provided for all, and to acquire luxury items, people trade instead of spending their days doing things they don't like.
With the model, Sinan wants to show us which sights we will be visiting tomorrow. On the left, he points to a fairly large globe, half buried in the forest. This is the city's swimming pool, that has been chosen as an item on our trip because it is markedly different from the surface swimming pools: you simply cannot drown there, because the “water” is far denser, causing you to float easier. “Like the Red Sea!” Melanie interjects. “But it isn't that salty” Kayim asks her. “Help, I didn't bring my swim gear!” Laura utters with panic in her voice. “Don't worry” Mayra says: “We can pretty much make you any apparel you find suitable.” So apparently, there's nothing to stop us from having a nice swim tomorrow. Sinan points out that this will happen tomorrow afternoon. The morning will be spent with the Elders, who will give us a bit of a history lesson.
I ask Sinan if there is a possibility to access the Web on the outside. I would very much like to update my site with a story of our exploits on the inside. Sinan leads me to a round seat, which envelops me with a spherical ‘screen’ the moment I sit down. It is projected around the seat, and is pressure sensitive. On the edge of the seat is a keyboard, which can be augmented by use of the dictation unit. It doesn’t take me long to get the hang of it. Once Sinan has shown me how to get to the outer web, I quickly find my own site, and am somewhat hesitantly typing and talking away to let our readers know how exciting it is down here.
As I finish, I notify Linda and Carlo. They are on holiday themselves, so I mail them, and send SMS-es to both their cellphones. I tell them something like “no matter what you hear, we're OK”. That ought to cover any rash actions by the hotel staff, or other people. Gea is up next, and takes the seat.
An hour or two later, even though the internal Sun is still high in the sky, it is the moment of sleep. Mayra leads us to the bedrooms a little lower, and gets us something to wear while in ‘bed’. I am very curious about the force field that acts as a mattress, will it be easy to lie on? We first go into the room designated to the girls. Mayra demonstrates how you can just walk onto the lower disc, after which you will be slightly lifted up to the levitation center of the field. After that, it is easy to position your body any way you like. The kids get into their nightly attire, step onto the pads, and immediately start doing rolls, and other tricks. I wonder how long they will be doing that before falling asleep. As for the lack of night, the windows have their own mechanism to remedy that: they slowly fade from transparent to dark gray, creating a great nightly look. Mayra, Gea and me leave the kids to their tricks, and go into two other rooms, one for Gea and one for me. After I’ve dressed for the night, it is my turn to try the ‘bed’. I step onto it, and feel myself being slightly lifted. It is a weird sensation, because there seems to be no extra pressure from below, like when you’re sitting on a bed. It is more the absence of weight, without the lack of oxygen normally found in outer space. But it also does not seem to be quite like normal weightlessness, for there is a certain friction between the force field and my body, that makes it easy to move around. I experiment a little, but it doesn’t take much time to find my optimum position. I doze off quickly, forgetting all about my peculiar surroundings.
But it doesn't last long. Not seven minutes later, I wake up terrified, because I just realize that I forgot my pills! I get dressed again, and think about why oh why I don't keep the bottle in my pocket at all times. Since our trip to the pyramids was only supposed to last a few hours, I'd plain forgotten about it, since I didn't need them till bedtime anyway.
I step onto the landing, and almost bump into Mayra. She sees the worried look on my face, and asks what is wrong. I explain the predicament of missing medication to her, and she looks me into the eyes: “Fortunately, we do have a remedy, a permanent one even”, she smiles. She leads me to the lower level, speaks some words I haven't heard yet, and grabs what seems like a futuristic motorcycle helmet from a closed container. “Here, put this on”.
I do, and Mayra pushes the shiny red button that is now on my forehead. A weird sensation, a tingling starts right below the button, inside my skull. “What is it doing,” I ask. Not that I'm scared or anything, because during my manic episodes I've felt similar sensations. “Basically, it does what you would call a defragmentation of your neural net.” Mayra volunteers. She goes on to say that where I come from, the Lithium would be used by the brain to perform a similar function itself. This just is more thorough, and will last me about a year. If needed, she can even have me taken to see a doctor, who will cure it permanently.... After that, I have no problem getting back to sleep. View Article Here Read More